Posted
by
msmash
on Thursday December 07, 2017 @11:40AM
from the calculated-approach dept.

San Francisco officials have voted to restrict where delivery robots can go in the city, in a blow for the burgeoning industry. From a report: Start-ups will have to get permits to use such bots, which will be restricted to less crowded urban areas. Opponents are concerned about the safety of pedestrians, particularly elderly people and children. Walk San Francisco, a group that campaigns for pedestrian safety, wanted a complete ban. A range of companies have begun trialling small robots that can deliver food and other goods. They use sensors and lasers in a similar way to self-driving cars in order to navigate their routes. Robotics company Marble - which describes its machines as "friendly, neighbourhood robots" - began testing in San Francisco earlier this year.

Illegal aliens are one of the few things California and San Fran refuse to restrict.

So you're complaining that California and San Francisco are following the Constitution? States have no control over immigration, that's quite clearly spelled out as Federal Authority, not State or Municipal. In fact, it's quite well documented that the writers of the Constitution, not to mention those who wrote the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were troubled for the potential for abuse that would cause, because even actual citizens could have their liberties constrained and impaired.

I hope that wherever you claimed to go to law school gave you a refund. Or at least publicly labeled you as ineligible to do anything other than work at a Starbucks.

Why do I need to go to Law School? I learned that in Civics Class in Middle School. I mean, they didn't get into the Passenger Cases, Henderson v. Mayor of New York, or the Chinese Exclusion Case, but really, they did point it out as a recognized Federal prerogative.

So, given the 2nd Amendment, states have no right to regulate guns then

The well-regulated state militias referenced in the 2nd amendment were "well-regulated" by the states.

Or maybe you can point out in the Constitution where it's OK for a state to explicitly violate federal law, such as by refusing to turn over illegal immigrants to the federal government when the feds say to?

This is a lie, when it comes to "sanctuary cities".

What happened before: States, counties and cities would hold suspected undocumented immigrants until the feds could determine if they were undocumented. This is actually constitutionally problematic, because the state, county or city has no right to enforce immigration law.

What happens now: States counties and cities do not hold suspected undocumented immi

Well regulated means well running. You have to understand the language as it existed at the time it was written. I know this is hard but is necessary. This is what is upheld by SCOTUS in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

One thing I love about SF supervisors and government offices! They focus on the important things that touch everyone, like food delivery robots. Not those pesky little problems that only affect a few people, like housing policies, transportation policies, tax policies. These are the things that matter, right on, good job!

You used the plural when referring to supervisors and government offices. This implies that there's more than one of each. This means that different people can focus on different things, and the government is not limited to dealing with the list of issues that have gotten under your particular skin.

Given the current situation, is it wise to allow robots wander around busy streets without restriction? Or could there be possible undesirable consequences? How much experience do we have with these robots

They just like going after the low-hanging fruit so that they claim to be doing their jobs.

Housing and transportation are difficult problems to solve. Maybe they've assigned some experts to work on the difficult problems, who will take a couple years to come up with some potential plans. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if they just decided that the problems were too difficult to solve, so they won't bother trying.

Did you notice that they went with the easiest possible response to the issue of del

Housing and transportation are difficult problems to solve. Maybe they've assigned some experts to work on the difficult problems, who will take a couple years to come up with some potential plans. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if they just decided that the problems were too difficult to solve, so they won't bother trying.

Welcome, Time Traveler!

I see you are from a time long passed, when Califonia politicians, bureaucrats, and officials were, for the most part, simply petty, egotistical thieves, and not too bright.

Today's leaders are simply using their positions any way they can to grow their fiefdom and thus the amount and value if the influence they can sell while on ideological crusades to further their party's agendas using any means they can get away with.

I think they would have to use the streets anyways as the sidewalks in parts of the city are full of tents or other makeshift dwellings for homeless people. Some of them would have no issues with stealing from delivery robots and there isn't a lot the police would do about it.

I think the homeless would appreciate free deliveries of food from passing robots. Unfortunately, the robot pictured in the article looks like it would be difficult to get into without a crowbar. Probably need to outlaw crowbars.

Having a bunch of motorized wheeled vehicles driving around on the sidewalks is a bad idea. Even if they don't hit anyone, they will create congestion and confusion. Confine them to the streets.

Any more than strollers, walkers, wheelchairs, bicycles, skateboards, rolling suitcases, beggars, street musicians and so on? I think this sounds like a really premature ban on something that might become a problem one day if they become popular and clog up the sidewalks during rush hour. I know our local hospital uses somewhat similar bots for internal medicine delivery, food delivery, laundry delivery etc. sharing corridors and elevators with patients and staff. It doesn't seem to be a problem for neither

I don't think it takes too much imagination to see these as a problem in cities. Good suggestion on "cow tipping". Some people may take this "solution" on their own initiative. Cow tipping and a crowbar could be a new path to unlimited free food.I believe that bicycles and skateboards are already banned in congested areas. Strollers, walkers, wheelchairs, rolling suitcases, beggars, and street musicians are legitimate pedestrian non-motorized activities (I think we need to give motorized wheelchairs a pass.

Bicycles are legally classified as vehicles (but not motor vehicles), and should use normal traffic lanes on the street if no separate bicycle lane is available. Some local laws may allow cycling on the sidewalk, sometimes for minors only. It may also be allowed if the sidewalk is explicitly marked as a multi-use path, or is provided with a marked sidewalk-level bike lane. But normally bicycles are supposed to use the road.

True enough. I'd be inclined to put the robot on the street instead but that's just me.

Thing is, the sidewalks in SF are often really crowded and a total mess. That seems the hardest place in the world to unleash a robot. If it were me, I'd start somewhere much easier to navigate. But maybe the two go hand in hand. You need lots of busy people who value convenience, are comfortable with technology, have the cash to pay for delivery, and are crowded together. Would Chicago be better? Boston and NYC are othe

Now that everyone on the streets seems to be an UBER [slashdot.org] driver, it takes forever to get anywhere in SF. With one person to a car, driving around aimlessly half of the time waiting for the fair that takes them home, the roads are completely packed.

Robots are sure to fix this when everyone buys a personal robot for driving and picking up food. Who needs to leave their house?

If San Francisco really cared about public safety, they would ban illegal aliens instead of welcoming them as an illegal "sanctuary city." But NO, technological innovation such as delivery robots are what these liberal/progressive knuckleheads are focused on.

Hey liberal/progressive knucklehead:
There's no shortage of people willing to come the United States LEGALLY to do ANY type of legal work that needs to be done.
Illegal aliens should be KICKED OUT of the United States. They don't belong here, which is why they are here ILLEGALLY. I realize this concept is beyond you. You don't understand the difference between a LEGAL RESIDENT and an ILLEGAL ALIEN.

True. Lots of people would like to come the US legally. Unfortunately, the US has many arbitrary restrictions on immigration so most of the people who would like to come are prohibited.However, companies still want to hire immigrants to do all of the low wage work so they hire immigrants and don't ask too many questions about their legal status. The problem really boils down to companies breaking the law.

There is a difference between committing a crime and breaking a law. Only certain specific laws cover criminal behavior. I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect you don't know which side immigration law is on, and likely didn't realize the distinction in the first place.

Illegal aliens are perpetually breaking the law and committing a crime every single moment they're in the country illegally. When they are in a given area, the crime rate of that area inherently increases because of the presence of these illegal aliens who are at all times in a state of law-breaking and criminality.

Illegal aliens (aka undocumented immigrants) are perpetually breaking a *federal* law. They aren't breaking a *state* law or a *local* law. Although when people generally talk about crime statistics, they talk about breaking *state* laws (e.g., murder, theft, burglary), not federal immigration law (or even federal drug laws) or even *local* laws (e.g., parking tickets, loitering). But of course since this is/. we are free to make up whatever definitions suit our point, right?

Crime is crime. Artificial categorizations like federal versus state versus local are irrelevant. All of those sum together to give the crime that will be experienced in a given area. Any area with a large number of illegal aliens will inherently have a higher crime rate until those illegal aliens are deported and prevented from returning, because they're perpetually in a state of committing crime by being in the country illegally.

Of course you are free to slice statistics anyway you want on/., but when people talk about crime rate, they are generally talking about UCR (FBI uniform crime reporting) where they do not count the crime of immigration violation in the statistics.

Similarly, there doesn't seem to be any correlation with the standard measurement of crime rate and the immigrant population (documented or undocumented).[citation offered] http://www.governing.com/gov-d... [governing.com]

(i) knowing that a person is an alien, brings to or attempts to bring to the United States in any manner whatsoever such person at a place other than a designated port of entry or place other than as designated by the Commissioner, regardless of whether such alien has received prior official authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States and regardless of any future official action

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts

Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact,

No the others represent crimes illegal aliens can also commit. "Anyone who...knowingly transports"...one illegal drives another known illegal around? "Anyone who....harbors"...one illegal rent a room to other illegals?

You need to control variables if you want to propose and test a hypothesis like this. See Freakonomics for allusions to the methods involved here. Namely, you would have to control for recent law changes at both the city and state levels that reduce punishment for crimes and release criminals early. Prior studies these guys have done point to reduced punishment as being directly correlated and most likely causative of increased crime. http://pricetheory.uchicago.ed... [uchicago.edu]

If San Francisco really cared about public safety, they would ban illegal aliens instead of welcoming them as an illegal "sanctuary city." But NO, technological innovation such as delivery robots are what these liberal/progressive knuckleheads are focused on.

Typical know everything youngin'! It jerks like you that don't have to pay robot attack insurance [nbc.com] that's ruining it for us old folks!;)

Luddite[luhd-ahyt]noun1.a member of any of various bands of workers in England (1811–16) organized to destroy manufacturing machinery, under the belief that its use diminished employment.2.someone who is opposed or resistant to new technologies or technological change.

Delivery bots use much of the same hardware and software as self-driving cars, but have market pressures toward lower cost. If they are mass-produced, this will bring down the cost of self-driving cars to the point where even economy cars can be self-driving. Also the AI problem that delivery bots face is arguably more difficult than a self-driving car, in that pedestrian traffic is much less regulated. So they might also drive advances in machine learning from which self-driving cars will benefit.

On the other hand, if delivery bots start injuring a lot of people, the backlash may extend to self-driving cars as well.

I predict that the future will include more self-driving vehicles designed to carry delivery bots than those designed to carry people. The bots will be taken to the delivery location by a vehicle, roll or walk off on their own to take the product to the door or even to the person, and return to the vehicle. People will even be able to receive deliveries in parks. You could be sitting in a park and order a meal to be delivered to your picnic table.

They may find that the robots will require protection from pedestrians. I can imagine irate people having been (almost) run over or shoved/scared out of the way might react somewhat aggressively towards a robot and any subsequent robots that they meet. After all, they're machines, not people with feelings and rights that can apologise and make amends.

I can also see municipalities being put under pressure to put up barriers to restrict their access to some areas. Not sure how that'd affect people who need to

There will likely be a "how am I driving?" QR code on them. They will go at a low enough speed that they can stop on a dime, and will be coded to stop if it would collide with something. Even if it's not human, it IS illegal (property damage) to damage it (which has a camera and network connection.)

your insurance company would be delighted to tell you the difference between a car for personal transportation and one that is not. again, the percentage of cars used for purposes of commercial delivery is tiny.

Anyone want some nearly new robots or parts? These are "overstock demo" units. At these low, low prices, there's no warranty, and serial numbers have been removed for your convenience.
We occasionally have self driving cars and parts, too!

They're concerned about pedestrians? That's an even better reason to allow robots! Tell me, have you *ever* seen a UPS truck legally parked or stopped? Have you ever seen one obey the speed limit in residential areas? That shit is the real danger, people let their feelings get the best of them when there isn't a single person to blame and sue when something goes wrong.